DayZ standalone creator talks November launch, future updates

DayZ creator Dean ‘Rocket’ Hall has told VG247 that he is still confident that the standalone version of his survival horror Arma 2 mod will launch in November, and that the game will expand in a similar fashion to Minecraft going forward.

As part of a VG247 interview, Hall explained that development of DayZ standalone is going slower than he’d like, but that it is important to avoid rushing launches, and to nail down a solid base alpha before releasing it into the wild.

“I think we’ve got a winner here,” Hall stated, “but it’s been challenging. It’s a slower development than I’d like, and while that’s not going to affect the release date, it is going to affect how ambitious we can be with the actual content.”

When asked if this meant the DayZ standalone edition would trim back on many features, Hall replied, “Well you know, I guess I never really thought we’d get things like construction into the standalone at launch. I’d prefer things to go faster, but that’s just game development.”

“I think the most important thing is we deal with hacking, bugs, duping, new content, tidy up some of the features and expand them a bit. I think if we can get that base – by the end of November or December – then that means January and February will be really happy, fun times.”

We then asked Hall how the update process would roll out from January, and in what manner the game will expand – be it through community-led features, or purely expansions dictated by the team.

“We have to get that initial alpha out,” Hall explained, “and whenever we want to push out a build we can pretty much push that. We’ve been talking about having three builds. First is an internal build – one that is just available for the development team.”

“Then a recommended build – like a beta testing build that’s available for the community, where they can try new updates before they come out. Then the final build, so that’s how we’re going to be taking things forward.”

“Code-wise, the updates will be quite well planned – like Minecraft updates ended up being with update Fridays and all that. I think with content, the content will come out as it’s done.”

“I think if it’s done and it’s tested, we’ll roll it out. We have an art cell as well, and we say to them, ‘we want this done’. So they go away and they are very agile, they decide how they’re going to do it. They manage themselves and produce the content.”

You can check out our full DayZ interview with Dean Hall on Monday October 8th.